


Starstruck Creatures

by mamdible



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Childbirth, F/F, Non-Explicit Childbirth, Rituals, Tusken Raider Culture, allusions to anakin murdering a whole bunch of babies, anyway Tuskens get done dirty by star wars and I want to change that, basically just. backstory for star wars ocs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:56:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27725146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mamdible/pseuds/mamdible
Summary: Series of short pieces on the childhoods of my Star Wars OCs. Loosely connected, mostly sticks with canon (though the OCs do belong to a major canon divergence AU i'm writing)
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Kudos: 2





	Starstruck Creatures

**Author's Note:**

> anyway I have feelings about Tusken raider culture and Tusken raiders in general. Most of the lore is made up by me and completely noncanonical but canon is pretty shit when it comes to Tuskens anyway so like. Things that are canonical are; Tuskens not showing any skin even to their family except in ritual, and Tusken children (called Uli-ah) being raised genderless.

In the Jundland Wastes, a child is to be born. Their mothers traipsed out into the desert three days ago with blessings from the Chieftains and the Soothsayers, Rak’urr’s bantha loaded up with medical supplies and a large canteen full of water. Ki’vo rides atop her own bantha, and Rak’urr scouts ahead to check for trespassers. 

When they are so far out into the desert that Rak’urr cannot see the smoke from the campfires anymore, she gestures for Ki’vo to come to a halt. Her wife tugs at the stirrups of her bantha, and Ummun slowly comes to a still, with Gok following suit. 

‘This is the place’, she signs. Ki’vo nods, looking around. There are no landmarks, this far out, no way for Oot to find His way to the birthplace of their child. Rak’urr herself was born further towards the Bantha Star, on a searing double-sun noon, where the heat made the air shimmer, hiding her birthplace in illusions and sun-madness, but this is a good place for a child to be born.

Underneath the Ak-Pearl Moon, glowing strongly. 

‘A strong child,’ Ki’vo signs. ‘It is a sign.’

Rak’urr closes her eyes, and for a moment, she can see them. Her baby, her Uli-ah, small and gangly with all sorts of trinkets in their belt-pouch, ringing with warmth and happiness. She breathes in, and smiles, and before she can open her eyes her mind is drawn to another vision.

Her child, lying in the desert, limbs akimbo and chest rising and falling fast. Her child, standing in ash. Her child, holding a blade of green fire. Her child.

‘Their life will not be easy’ she signs back to her beloved. The Soothsayers all said so, shook their heads at the timing. Any child under a full Ak-Pearl Moon has a hard life ahead of them, because Ak can tell that they will be needing her strength. 

‘We can try, though. Always try.’

Rak’urr steps towards her wife, reaches up a hand. Ki’vo takes it, stepping deftly off her bantha, gentle so as not to disturb the baby. One of her hands rests on the bump, stroking through the heavy cloth and metal of her shroud to comfort the little thing. 

‘I’ll unpack,’ Rak’urr signs once her hands are free. Ki’vo reaches up to touch her visor, stroking a glove along the rusted metal. 

‘I will lay out the meal,’ Ki’vo signs, and turns to the flattest part of the dunes.

***

Her hands are whisper soft as they push back Ki’vo’s shroud, leaving only the metal visor. Her wife’s hair is dark and thick, soft and smelling of sweet-leaves and t’sik. It has been so long since Rak’urr has seen her face, nearly nine hundred turns, but Rak’urr can still remember every detail. 

Slowly, reverently, she lifts away the visort, revealing dark skin, full lips and such long eyelashes. Ki’vo grins, hands jangling in amusement, and now Rak’urr sees the emotion on her face as well, smooth planes crinkling and dimpling as her teeth are bared and her eyes close.  
‘Your turn,’ Ki’vo signs off snap-quick before throwing back Rak’urr’s own hood. She cuts her hair, keeps it cropped fairly short, not Ki’vo, who has tresses all the way down her back, but Ki’vo looks at the tight curls as if they’re something beautiful, and not a tangled, dirty mess. 

And then the visor is lifted free, and her eyes can barely adjust to the world. Ki’vo is beautiful beneath the moonlight, even more beautiful without the dark tint of the visor. 

In turns they strip away clothing, piece by piece, exposing skin to each other and the desert, until they are both as naked as the day they were born. The child bulges against the skin of Ki’vo’s stomach, beautiful and nearly there. 

It isn’t proper, but Rak’urr can’t help herself – she leans in carefully, and brushes her face against Ki’vo’s. Cheek against cheek, lips against lips, and Rak’urr feels so full of love she could burst. For a long moment, they simply stare at each other, and then Ki’vo nods decisively, and begins the labour. 

***

It is an easy birth. Four hours in total, with minimal bleeding and little pain (though Tuskens don’t feel much pain in birthing – once they release the spines holding the child in, it slips out easy enough) and then their little Ki’urr is on the sands with them.

The child doesn’t cry, only hiccups and blinks large, wet eyes up at them as Rak’urr towels off the fluid and blood covering their little body. All around them, the desert is silent. She doesn’t dare breathe, because she can tell this is important. This is a sacred moment. Perhaps, when little Ki’urr is old enough, they will choose to become a Soothsayer. Some stories tell of Soothsayers who could see the future, tell where danger might come from, even guide whole tribes to hidden wells.

Rak’urr thinks that perhaps her little baby is like that, with their dark, shining eyes and their flared nostrils. 

‘Beautiful,’ Ki’vo signs. She does so quietly, not wanting to disturb their little child. Rak’urr cannot sign back, hands too full with a little miracle, but she nods. Ki’vo props herself up, still sweaty and exhausted, and pulls over the bantha-fur cloth she wove for this exact occaision.

Every day, Ki’vo would tease more loose strands of hair from Ummun, the sun-stained golden hair around its neck. Every night, she would spin it into thread and feed the golden strands into her loom, weaving together a swaddling cloth. When it was done, she took the leftover thread and dipped it into black-melon dye, and embroidered intricate patterns along the hem. Now, she swaddles their child in her months of effort, and the cloth seems so perfect for their little baby.

That is her gift to Ki’urr, one of the two birth-gifts they will carry with them forever. Rak’urr suddenly feels inadequate, her own gift not nearly as perfect as the golden bantha-fur cloth, but she fumbles around until she finds her discarded clothes, and then more until she finds the right pouch where her gift is concealed. 

Ki’vo is a craftswoman. She is the second best weaver in the whole tribe, and certainly the best at embroidery. Rak’urr, on the other hand, is a gatherer. She goes out to find black melons, and thraad vines, and sweet-leaves. Sometimes she will find corpses, half-buried in the sand.  
Usually, they are bound in chains, shackles tight around even their bleached bones. Whenever she comes across them, Rak’urr makes sure to break the bindings – for even if they are Ootmen, they are Amakku, and didn’t choose to trespass. Everyone knows that the stolen Uli-ah became Amakku, and perhaps the bones she finds belonged to a descendant of her tribesmen. 

So she frees the corpses, and takes whatever they might have on them. 

And there was a corpse – old enough that even the bones, picked clean and turned chalky from the double-suns, had begun to crumble. The skeleton had thick, heavy chains around their legs and arms, and the sands had long since worn away any cloth, but the golden bracelet around their neck and adorning their ribs were still there to see. 

As was, clenched tightly in one fist, the shard of green stone. A Tattooine emerald, large and lime in colour, closer to yellow than green. 

So Rak’urr freed the skeleton, and even gave it rites, and took the emerald. Tied it tightly with womp rat leather, fashioned it into a necklace. Her child will carry it around their neck, a symbol of the desert’s fury. Of the Amakku’s fury. They will need that, she thinks, with the moon they were born under.

It will help them.

***

They ride back into camp the next morning, covered once more. She almost misses the intimacy of seeing each others faces, touching each others skin, completely uncovered – but it was terrifying, too. Her face is sacred, Ki’vo’s too, something to be respected and cherished and never taken for granted. If they ever feel like seeing each other again, they can ride out to their marriage site, and know each other once more.

But for now, they have a little one to look after. 

Everyone in the clan gathers around, cooing at little Ki’urr, with their too-big filter mask and the golden swaddling cloth all the other parents are jealous of. Mikk’iktu gives them a bowl of womp rat stew, with boiled thraad vines and even a few sweet-leaves, and both of them than him gratefully before retreating to their tent to eat. 

Ki’urr demands to be fed as well, meaning Ki’vo has to untuck her shroud to allow the baby to suckle, which is embarrassing to say the least for everyone involved, but somehow still endearing. To see (even accidentally) a glimpse of her wife’s flesh outside of ritual is mortifying, but also… yes, endearing.

Little Ki’urr is fed, and clothed in the thin, breathable cloth all babies wear so as to prevent them from suffocating, and placed into their bed, right next to Ki’vo and Rak’urr’s own bed of fur and cloth. 

The baby sleeps easily, and Rak’urr follows her child into slumber.

***

She dreams;

Oot comes to the tribe, clothed in black with a sword forged from the fires of Ko. He swings his blade and cuts down the men, and then the women, and the Soothsayers and the Uli-ah. None are spared – he is a beast, wanting blood and never being sated. This is certain.

The scene shifts;

An Uli-ah, wearing ill-fitting robes, trudging through the desert under the glare of the double-suns. They carry a slug-slinger over their shoulder, and a yellow-green emerald hangs from their neck. It is her child, Rak’urr is sure. They seem to wander aimlessly, hopelessly lost in the desert, but all Rak’urr can think of is that they survived Oot’s massacre. They go back to their home – they seek out the Ootmen – they kill the Ootmen – they save the Ootmen.

Again;

Ki’urr is taller, now, and should be an adult, but they wear no shroud, or bead headdress, and they carry no gaderffii. They wear the clothes of an Ootman, but their helmet is that of an Uli-ah. Her child is not on Tattooine, and something in her aches at the thought. They are in the stars – on a foreign planet – flying high in the sky.

Again;

Now they wield a blade themselves, yellow-green and crackling fiercely as they cut down their foes. They dance amongst Ootmen, blade slicing cleanly through flesh and bone and cloth. A warrior, Rak’urr thinks. She looks again, at the tension in her child’s body, at the desperation painted in the lines of their form. A survivor, she thinks. They fight evil – good – nothing at all.

Again;

Taller still – fully grown, now, and still Uli-ah. This time, they are in the company of an Ootman – with red skin, and two flesh-horns hanging over their shoulders, though one is shorter than the other, and scarred, along with half the Ootman’s face. Something is between them, complicated and unspoken and dangerous. They are enemies – lovers – friends – family – always something.

And the end;

Two bodies, lying entwined. Two bodies apart – together – in combat – old – young – alone – amongst many. Her child, and the Ootman, they die together. Even if they do not die at the same time, or the same place, even if they die lovers or enemies, they die together. Their souls are together as they fly up to join Ko.

***

When she wakes, she is crying. Her own father had remarked that she could have been a Soothsayer, if she had chosen such a thing. A proper one, who could speak with Ik’orrdo, not just one-who-is-her-child but one-who-speaks-to-her. 

But Soothsayers cannot marry, and she has always loved Ki’vo. 

This is Ik’orrdo’s voice, a telling of the future. Of many possible futures. She has seen her child become great, do terrible things or wonderful things, love or hate or feel nothing at all, and still her child is in their bed.

It is not a warning, for there is nothing she can do to change it. It is just a glimpse, a fact. Her child will be strong, for they were born under the full Ak-pearl moon, or perhaps simply because they must be. They will survive longer than she will, that much is certain, and for that Rak’urr is glad. No parent should ever have to bury their child.


End file.
